AN ECOLOGICAL BACKGOUND

TO CONCEPTS OF LAND HUSBANDRY

(Extracted from Downes, 1982)

INTRODUCTION

"Unless there is a positive commitment by the Government and people ... for looking after their resources for future generations as well as the present, then conservation concepts become meaningless.

"The most important requirement at present is for everybody to be made to understand that soil conservation is more than erosion control and that it is not just an agricultural problem. Soil conservation is really a matter of applying the appropriate uses to different kinds of land.

TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR GOOD LAND USE

"Conservation is a man-made concept concerned with how man relates to his land and uses its resources. The objective is to determine and put into practice how he can satisfy his physical and aesthetic needs from the land without spoiling its capability for continuing to satisfy those needs.

"To be successful, man must understand the ecological dynamics of different kinds of land and use that knowledge to devise non-destructive systems of land use and management for each kind of land. The knowledge of how land will react to imposed changes is the basis for making decisions about land use and management so as to maintain the capability for the chosen use.

"Land is the basic resource of a nation. To provide for all of his needs, man must use land for many purposes. He needs land to produce food, fibre, timber and water, for urban and industrial purposes, for transport by roads, railways and airports, for the extraction of minerals and building materials, for distributing power by transmission lines and pipelines and for the safe disposal of wastes. But he also needs land for non-productive purposes: for recreation and enjoyment; and land in its natural state to serve as reference areas and as habitat for the vast array of species of plants and animals, a great repository of genetic material that could be of value in the future.

"Apart from those uses needed for subsistence, all other uses are of equal necessity although the priorities of different communities for uses of land may change from time to time.

"Some uses of land such as agriculture are flexible because that use does not preclude many other future uses and it is easy to change to the other use. Some uses such as urban and industrial uses and forest plantations are inflexible because once the use is imposed it must continue for a long time. A use such as open space for recreation does not affect the capability for other uses, but ones like open cut mining change the nature of the land and preclude most options for future use.

"Uses such as scientific reserves and water catchments are compatible with each other and the land can be used for both purposes at the same time by multiple use; other uses such as agriculture and scientific reserve are incompatible and a choice must be made.

"Land varies from place to place in the landscape. Different land has different characteristics and different capabilities. The character of the land in any place is determined by the particular combination of the features of which it is composed: the topography, soil, hydrology, fauna and flora and the climate in which it is located.

"The nature of the features and the character of the land is the result of a long evolutionary period of interaction between the features in the prevailing climate. Where the interactions have been the same in the landscape, the same kind of land is to be found. Consequently the variations of land and the spatial arrangement of different kinds of land in the landscape are not due to chance but to different types of interactions. These differences can be studied and explained and used to determine the nature of the land, its capability for various kinds of use, the hazard of using it for different purposes and the relationship and interaction between the land occupying different situations in the landscape.

"In the natural state, land has a dynamic equilibrium. Although it may appear to be unchanging, the interactions are continuing. Within each kind of land there is a community of plants and animals which, from among the species available, are appropriate populations of those best able to live in association and competition with each other under the prevailaing climatic, topographic, hydrologic and soil conditions. The trend of the interactions and the resulting succession of different species of plants and animals is towards a maximum sustainable biological productivity attainable from the available array of species.

"When man uses land for plant and animal production he changes the natural systems because the existing maximum sustainable biological productivity is either not sufficient or not what he wants. Some kinds of land can be changed without becoming unstable, but others in which the stability depends on specially adapted plants, or a particular hydrologic balance or some other special feature can easily become unstable. Unless the imposed system of use and management incorporates precautions for maintaining a new stability, land degradation occurs. Man has failed to understand that ecological principles must be applied to devise suitable stable systems of use and management for different kinds of land. Clearing land of its original vegetation, cultivating, burning and introducing new species of plants and animals are significant changes that can equal in their effect the rare catastrophic changes during geological time that set off sequences of erosion and reshaping of the topography. The altered hydrology and the long periods when bare soil is exposed to the effects of sun, wind and rain are the basic causes of land degradation.

"But land degradation is not always due to changes made for agriculture. Badly located urban development, badly sited roads, bad forest harvesting and a whole range of man's activity can cause instability and degradation.

"Some people have sought a solution by trying to correct land degradation after it has occurred. This is a negative approach which implies that whenever land is used, degradation is an inevitable consequence which can only be controlled. The ecological approach to land use and soil conservation is much more positive. It is based on understanding the land, its capability for use and the hazards that must be overcome when used for different purposes. The objective is to use land only for purposes within its capability by perceiving the potential causes of instability and designing the system of use and management to overcome them.

"Achieving soil conservation will require good decisions by many people and not only those who are using the land. For this reason ecological principles can be used to provide guidelines for decision making if land degradation is to be avoided.

- Decisions should be made on the basis of adequate information about the land, its character, its capability for different uses, the hazards to be overcome when used for different purposes and its relative suitability for the various available options for use.

- Decisions should be made on the basis that different kinds of land have different potentialities for various uses, the most valuable land being that eminently suitable for a number of uses.

- Land having the potential for many uses should, as far as possible, be maintained under a flexible form of use to retain the greatest possible range of options for the future.

- Multiple use of land should be used to the greatest possible extent.

- Development of new land for production should be in response to real social or physical need; undeveloped land is the most flexible form of land use; it retains the widest possible range of options to cater for future needs.

- Decisions to use land for particular purposes should take into account not only the likely hazard of degration to that land but also to other land.

- Before deciding about using land for a particular purpose suitable management to prevent hazards must be available.

"The real problem is inappropriate systems of land use. When land is cultivated too much and develops a compaction layer, and it is left without vegetative cover for far too long in each year and the rotations have no provision for a restoration phase that will improve the structure, organic matter and fertility, the land is vulnerable.

"The soil loses its structure, the infiltration capacity is reduced, the chances of increased water flow across bare soil is increased and soil erosion occurs more frequently.

"The emphasis on erosion and its control, the erodibility of soils and permissible amounts of soil loss is a negative and unsatisfactory attitude.

"... those using the land, making decisions about its use or conducting research must develop a new attitude based on ecological principles. They must understand that any act of manipulating land produces reactions. These reactions must be perceived and taken into account in managing and using the land if land degradation is to be prevented.

"In future, land must be looked on as a resource to be nurtured and used appropriately and not as a commodity to be traded or as a raw material to be wasted by inappropriate use.

A PHILOSOPHY ABOUT LAND AND ITS USE

"A better community attitude to land can only come from the development of a philosophy about the land and its significance

to the welfare of a community. Such a philosophy will engender a widespread attitude that conforms with it.

"At present people in many countries have no clear understanding about the nature of land, land use, soil conservation or even about man's relation to the environment and his dependence on the land and its productivity.

"While this confusion exists it is difficult for any stated policy and objectives about land to emerge. The acceptance of a philosophy based on ecological principles will be technically correct and will provide the basis for suitable policy and objectives for attaining good land use and preventing land degradation.

"Acceptance of the following statements would serve as a suitable philosophy:

- The land is the basic resource of a nation and its use and management in a manner that causes degradation or destruction is undesirable because it affects the welfare of the whole community.

- Different kinds of land are dynamically balanced ecological systems which will be degraded or destroyed if the system of use and management imposed on them does not provide stability also.

- The kind and degree of manipulation that can be imposed safely on any land system to provide for the wide variety of needs of the community depends on the ecological characteristics of the system.

- The use of land should be based on an understanding of its ecological characteristics, the limitations of its capability and the need to obviate the hazards that would cause degradation if submitted to some kinds of land use and management.

- The requirements of the community can be satisfied only by submitting land to a variety of uses required to satisfy the different needs. Decisions about the future development use and management of the land and its resources should be made in an integrated and comprehensive way taking into account the total needs of the community now and in the future, and making use of the land and its associated water systems to the greatest possible extent for the uses for which they are most suitable.

- Land having the potential for a wide range of uses should be maintained in flexible forms of use as far as possible.

- In using land and its resources long term advantage should be pursued, rather than short term expediency that will lead to exploitation, degradation and finally destruction."

REFERENCE

DOWNES R G, 1982. 'Institution Building for Soil and Water Conservation in Brazil'. Consultant's report to Project BRA/82/011. Rome: FAO (AGLS). pp.43. (unpubd.)

see also

DOWNES R G, 1971. 'Land, Land Use and Conservation', in: Costin A B and Frith H J (eds.) 'Conservation'. Penguin Books (Australia).

.oOo.

PRINCIPLES

OF GOOD LAND HUSBANDRY:

Achieving conservation of land's productive potentials

"HUSBANDRY: The business of a farmer: tillage : economical management: thrift. Old English: Husbonda - hus: a house; buandi: inhabiting, (pr.p. of Old Norse. bua: to dwell."

(Chambers 20th Century Dictionary,

1983, p.613)

DEFINITION

Good land husbandry is the active process of implementing and managing preferred systems of land use and production in such ways that there will be increase - or, at worst, no loss - of productivity, of stability or of usefulness for the chosen purpose;

also, in particular situations

Existing uses or management may need to be changed so as to halt rapid degradation and to return the land to a condition where good husbandry can have fullest effect.

(derived from Downes, 1982)

INTRODUCTION

The concept of 'husbandry' is widely understood when applied to crops and animals in the sense of 'looking after them'. As a concept signifying active understanding, management and improvement, it is equally applicable to land. Crop husbandry, animal husbandry and land husbandry all imply the following:

- Understanding the characteristics, potentials and limitations of different types of plants, animals and land;

- Predicting the likely positive or negative effects on their productive potentials resulting from a given change in management, or of severe but uncommon events such as epidemic disease or severe rainfall;

- Working out how they can be strengthened to resist the negative effects of such events;

- Adopting systems of management that maintain their productivity and usefulness;

- Improving their production in terms of quality and quantity of output in a given time;

- The active and central role of the farmer as manager and steward of the resource.

In the case of land, a primary concern is to maintain its productive capabilities and to avoid their degradation. Land degradation may result from decline in biological, chemical or physical attributes of the soil, such as decline in organic activity, waterlogging, acidification, loss of porosity, and/or the loss of soil particles, nutrients and runoff.

In some situations, loss of the voids in the soil associated with loss of soil structure (degradation of the soil's architecture) leads to increased resistance to root growth, less retention of soil moisture in plant-available condition, and reduced infiltration-capacity and permeability, all of which can lead to reductions in yields. Loss of plant nutrients - which are cycling in the organic materials and processes of the ecosystems - through leaching, wash-off and crop removal can cause rapid and significant declines in potential soil fertility levels.

Accelerated erosional loss of soil particles, organic materials and nutrients by wind or water is frequently a consequence of decline of soil structure - especially within the top few millimetres of a soil profile - rather than itself the primary cause of land degradation. Decline of soil structural conditions may be caused by compaction, by pulverization, by collapse or by interstitial sealing due to raindrop action. The resulting accelerated runoff and erosion are foreseeable ecologic consequences of inadequate husbandry of the land.

The keys to sustainability and replicability of improved land use systems lie with land-users themselves. They are the ultimate decision-makers about what is done on their lands from day to day, and their decisions affect the well-being of the land. Small-farm families are artists in survival in the various agro-ecologic and socio-economic environments with which they are familiar. However, when they move to unfamiliar environments their artistry may be of little avail at the outset when they know little or nothing about the nature, systems, functioning, hazards, potentials or limitations of their new environment. Nevertheless, their latent skills, relevant local knowledge and varied enthusiasms are major resources which in most situations have scarcely been tapped, a failure which hinders success and sustainability of development efforts.

Because the management of land is undertaken by rural people, good land husbandry embraces both agro-ecologic and socio-economic principles.

AGRO-ECOLOGIC PRINCIPLES

LAND FOR THE FUTURE

People in the future have a right to make use of land which is in good condition. Types of land for whose safe and sustainable use an adequate technology is not yet available or feasible should wherever possible be left in an undisturbed natural condition so as to leave all options open for a range of safe alternative uses in later years. This indicates a present need to concentrate plant nutrients, water, organic and inorganic fertilizer materials, effort, and other productive resources into limited areas ('niches') of intensive land use in carefully-husbanded micro-environments within larger units of land.

Of land being brought into use, or already in use, as much as possible should be maintained under flexible types of use (of which undisturbed natural vegetation is the most flexible type, whereas e.g. permanent buildings or roads etc. would be a most inflexible type). This leaves a maximum number of options for different uses in future from which others may still choose.

To the extent possible, multiple uses of a given area of land should be favoured, so as to maintain as much as possible elsewhere under undisturbed and flexible conditions with regard to the future.

Descriptions of the suitability of a given area of land for different uses should always include definitions both of the degradation hazards of the land itself and of the conservation-effectiveness of the proposed forms of use and their management, so that hazards and husbandry can be suitably counterbalanced in the planning of actions.

ACHIEVING CONSERVATION

Across a varied area of land, achieving conservation requires that husbandry should be so adjusted to each homogeneous sub-area that any rate of degradation is effectively minimised, and that no one part 'wears out' or becomes unproductive more quickly than any other.

In situations where the present type of land use is incompatible with apparent land-use capability but the use cannot be changed, the management of that use should be improved - particularly in terms of cover to the soil and the soil's architectural (structural) and nutritional conditions - so as to increase the conservation-effectiveness of current practices and thus to minimise the risks of degradation, of soil loss and the concomitant uncovering of less-fertile subsurface soil materials on which subsequent crops would have to be planted.

Skilled and appropriate management for production - of croplands, pasturelands and woodlands - itself should achieve effective conservation of the land's productivity and usefulness under the range of usual climatic conditions of a given area. Key factors are:

- The presence of adequate degrees of cover to the soil (with respect to density, frequency, timing and duration);

- Optimum conditions of soil architecture (with respect to grades and stability of structural units, which are highly dependent on organic materials and organic processes) for both the aeration of the soil and the infiltration and retention of water on the one hand, and for good growth and functioning of roots on the other;

- Provision of plant nutrients from organic sources (supplemented as needed by those from inorganic sources) to at least replace - or if necessary exceed - those lost by harvesting of plants, leaching, and unavoidable runoff.

Where yields are unnecessarily low, increased production of plant parts per unit area may on the one hand automatically provide increased protective cover to the soil, and on the other hand increase the transpiration of soil moisture and and thus contribute to temporary improvement in the soil's moisture-storage capacity. Higher yields thus may contribute simultaneously to both higher production, better conservation, and better stability of the land-use system.

While good husbandry practices will provide adequate protection within the expected range of normal climatic conditions, additional specialised conservation practices - which are simple and effective, and require little expense and labour for implementing - may be justified as precautions against effects of less frequent, more severe events.

ROTATIONS AND SOIL RECUPERATION

To sustain productivity under agricultural conditions in which tillage, compaction, erosion or other problems may damage them, soils generally require regular periods of restorative management in the cycles of agricultural use. The development, restoration and maintenance of optimum chemical, physical and soil moisture conditions for plant growth are strongly dependent on the presence of organic materials and the activities of micro- and meso-organisms, preferably coupled with the effects of the roots of living grasses and perhaps other perennial plants during the recuperation break in each rotation.

DIVERSITY AND STABILITY

The more biologically diverse and complex is an agricultural system, the more stable and sustainable it is likely to be in the face of unpredictable vagaries of climate and of the market.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES

FARMERS' DECISIONS

Farmers are primarily concerned with stable and economic production, not with conservation of soil and water per se, especially when this latter may entail physical work or investment of resources which show little or no perceptible benefit.

Rural people make rational decisions within the 'envelope' which encompasses their circumstances, skills and resources. Improvements in land husbandry are more likely to occur if the 'shape' of this envelope within which they make their decisions is changed and enlarged, than if attempts are made to change their rationality within an unaltered envelope. Farmers will not amend what they are already familiar with unless they perceive that recommended changes will be both workable in practice and sufficiently beneficial to them in terms of their goals.

People are only likely to adopt recommendations for improved husbandry practices to the extent that they judge that the practices are able to:

- Stabilise or increase present output;

- Be economic;

- Confer other benefits which are important to them; and/or

- Simultaneously release resources e.g. time, energy, cash etc., for other actions or investments (which may or may not be agricultural).

PARTICIPATING WITH FARM FAMILIES

In a given situation, suggestions for improvements in land husbandry should be developed together with rural people, using their knowledge, awareness of problems, analysis, insights, capacities, skills, goals, aspirations, enthusiasms and priorities.

In most situations, the first step in provoking or assisting change and improvement is to start from what people already know, and to help them first to do better what they are already trying to achieve. Building and strengthening effective traditional or familiar techniques, systems and institutions is likely to engender more interest and commitment than will the attempted introduction of unfamiliar approaches or of actions which farmers perceive to be unacceptably risky and/or of no real benefit.

Local knowledge, rationality and skills should be respected, and enriched in appropriate ways. Locally-acknowledged boundaries - whether of a group's shared interests or of the land area at its disposal - may be more significant than topographic or other geographical boundaries in defining appropriate land areas for action.

Farm families' enthusiastic undertaking of new activities is significantly more likely if they have fully participated in the decision-making process that led up to such activities than if they had been inadequately - or not at all - consulted. This participation will include:

- Identifying and ranking problems and opportunities;

- Formulating and implementing appropriate courses of action;

- Monitoring and evaluating the outcomes of these decisions and actions.

Conservation of productivity and of soil can be more acceptably achieved by stealth (that is, indirectly) - via improvements in know-how, in farming systems management and output, which evidently help farm families to achieve their goals - than by frontal attack only with specialised conservation measures. Seen in another way, where cover over the soil is excellent, where the soil architecture is stable, porous and absorptive, where plants have adequate nutrition, and yields are high, there is seldom need to worry much about the risks of runoff, erosion, loss of water, organic matter and nutrients, or of subsoil exposure.

CREDIBILITY OF ADVISERS

Credibility of advisers is essential to two-way transfer of information, and must be earned, not assumed, from the outset. Without it, there will not be among farmers the necessary receptivity and willingness to consider new viewpoints and ideas which their advisers might suggest.

The credibility of technical advisers is enhanced when the ranking of problems to be addressed is that accorded by the household or community in the light of the knowledge its members have about the possible solutions, and where allowance is made for the fact that people's priorities and their ranking may change with time and circumstance.

In a participatory 'bottom-up' approach, technical advisers in day-to-day contact with rural people need to be able to act more as catalysts, facilitators and sources of new skills and information for discussion, rather than as bearers of messages from higher authority.

In situations of small-scale and subsistence agriculture at least, the sequence in which improvements are introduced into farmers' discussions may be at least as important, in attracting farmers' attention, as the nature of the suggested improvements,

Many of the problems and possibilities that rural people encounter are interlinked and may cross-cut more than one conventional technical discipline. Staff of agencies offering them advice are more likely to note a positive response where this aspect is acknowledged by providing technical advice within an 'ecology of disciplines' rather than as an assortment of apparently unrelated bits of information.

It is not usually desirable or possible to 'push farmers around' - in respect of either the types of production they follow or the places in which they undertake them on the landscape - merely in the interest of getting the physical arrangement of land uses to match technical maps of assumed 'land use capability'.

Outline: Some of the key features of new thinking about land husbandry are set out in the two Tables which follow.

.oOo.

NEWER VIEW	OLDER VIEW
1. Chief causes for concern are (a) decline of land's in-situ productive potentials, and (b) insufficiency of soil moisture.	1a. The primary cause for concern was with quantities lost of soil particles and water.
2. Improving and managing soil to ensure optimum rainwater absorption and retention will have more sure and widespread effects on plant production than only constructing physical cross-slope works to catch or direct runoff water and soil already on the move.	2a. It was commonly assumed that cross-slope physical conservation works would result in significant increases in yield, by holding back soil, water and nutrients in narrow bands across the slope.
3. Accelerated runoff and erosion are foreseeable ecological processes, and consequences of other aspects of land degradation	3a. Accelerated runoff and erosion were visualised as primary active causes of land degradation.
4. Post-erosion yields at any site after erosion are closely related to the quality of soil which still remains in situ.	4a. It wass generally assumed that decline in yields post-erosion could be related closely to quantities of water, soil particles and plant nutrients lost in the erosion process.
5. Rainfall's erosivity can be minimised by breaking the force of large raindrops by ensuring some form of cover over the soil surface.	5a. Erosivity of rainfall was usually implicitly assumed to be an unalterable feature of each rain event.
6. Soil's erodibility is increased or diminished over time by effects of management of the soil.	6a. Erodibility of a soil series was assumed to be an inherent characteristic of that series.
7. More intensive use of land at a particular site - such that it (a) improves soil architectural conditions by favouring soil-organic transformations and minimising tillage-damage, and (b) increases density, duration and frequency of cover over the soil - can improve rather than diminish conservation-effectiveness of the particular use.	7a. If at a particular site the land land use was 'too intensive' for the Land Use Capability classification of that site, it was recommended to reduce the land use intensity until it matched that permitted for that Class.
8. Increased production of plant parts - with improvements in soil architectural conditions, and in the amounts of cover over the soil - is an effective way of achieving conservation of water and soil as a consequence of better husbandry within the farm production system	8a. It was usually insisted that soil conservation be done/implemented before yields could rise.
9. Because the land system is dynamic, maintaining its capacity to continue producing what we want requires its active and conservation-effective management over time, at the same time as any re-allocations of land uses and imposition of any necessary physical works.	9a. It was implied that land would be least subject to erosion when its uses were allocated across the landscape in accordance with the maps of 'Land Use Capability Classification', and treated with types and layouts of physical and biological conservation measures.
10. Solving problems of low productivity and of erosion and runoff requires an inter-disciplinary approach to match the inter-relatedness of the problems' causes. etc.	10a. It was assumed that soil conservation requiresd a mono-disciplinary specialist approach independent of other specialisations, and needing separate institutional arrangements. etc.

BETTER LAND HUSBANDRY - ALTERING SOME SOCIO-ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES.

NEWER VIEW	OLDER VIEW
11. Farm families have their own observations and perceptions about land degradation, and other views of the reality than those of non-farm agriculturists/specialists: they should be allowed to judge what is best in their situation.	11a. Specialists' perceptions of the land degradation problems and solutions were presumed to be the correct ones: outsiders would judge what is best.
12. The rural community, and the development of its abilities to manage its own environment, is the most appropriate focus of development assistance.	12a. Land conservation, production and economic efficiency were usually proposed as the primary foci for development assistance.
13. Resource-poor small farmers have considerable knowledge about their environments, and make rational decisions about allocation of their resources within the 'envelopes' of constraints within which they make those decisions; the challenge is to lessen constraints and improve the shape of the 'envelope'.	13a. It was implicitly, or even explicitly, assumed that small resource-poor farmers are by nature conservative, irrational and ignorant of good land use; the task was to change farmers' rationality.
14. Rural families ultimately decide what will be done on the land, and whether it would be in their interests to change according to recommendations; resource-poor small farmers are more vitally concerned than any outsider to maintain their lands' productivity in both the short and long term.	14a. Governments assumed that they decide what would be done on the land, as they assumed they had a greater long-term concern to maintain productivity and halt land degradation than do small farmers with (supposedly) short-term time-horizons.
15. To get conservation-effective agriculture improved, it is important to start from where people are now, assist them to do better what they are already trying to do, and remove constraints that inhibit their doing better.	15a. Adoption of recommended changes and innovations were promoted as being essential for getting agriculture moving.
16. A community, and the land it occupies and uses, is the optimum focus for village planning, and for integrating inputs of various 'disciplines'.	16a. The topographic catchment/watershed, with the people it contains, was generally stated to be the logically optimum unit for programme planning, and for demonstrating the effects of technical recommendations..
17. 'Participation' signifies technical advisers participating with farm families in helping people to identify and rank their most important problems, to decide what do about them, to implement decided actions, and to monitor the outcomes.	17a. 'Participation' was commonly taken to mean 'the people participating in implementing plans', devised by outsiders, which were considered good for them.
18. Advisory workers should be promoters of dialogue and of two-way information-transfer, catalysts of interactions, and facilitators of interchange and of farmers' well-informed actions	18a. Extension workers were trained as demonstrators and one-way transmitters of information to farm families, in a process of 'transfer of technology'.
19. Until they have proved themselves to the satisfaction of individual farmers, technical advisers have very low credibility at the outset of their interactions with farm families. etc.	19a. Technical advisers armed with scientific knowledge assumed themselves to be 100% credible from the outset. etc

[unedited transformation from WP to ms/WORD from diskette 97.4:ECOLGLHc:10.6.97]